The former boyfriend of the late Anna Nicole Smith is facing a possible prison sentence after a decision to throw out drugs-related convictions against him and her former psychiatrist were overturned by a court in California.
Howard K Stern and Khristine Eroshevich were convicted in October 2010 of conspiring to provide drugs to the former Playboy model, who died of an overdose in a Florida hotel room in February 2007 at the age of 39.
Stern, Smith's longtime lawyer and boyfriend, was found guilty on two conspiracy counts relating to using a false name to secure prescription drugs for her.
Eroshevich was convicted of four counts of fraudulently obtaining medication when prescribing drugs under false names to the starlet.
But at a sentencing hearing last year, Los Angeles judge Robert Perry dismissed Stern's two conspiracy convictions, citing insufficient evidence, and three of Eroshevich's four convictions.
However, an appeal court has now ruled that the judge erred in Stern's case, and said he should either allow a new trial, dismiss the convictions on other grounds, or sentence him based on the original convictions.
In Eroshevich's case, the judge could order a retrial or dismiss the convictions on other grounds, the panel said in its 34-page ruling.
The panel said there was "evidence Mr Stern knowingly participated in conduct designed to avoid detection" and that Stern knew Eroshevich's prescriptions were written in names other than Smith's true name.
"His knowledge and involvement was such the jury could reasonably conclude Mr Stern, a lawyer, knowingly participated in the ongoing illegal practice of securing illegal prescriptions," the judges said.
A post mortem examination on Smith found that she died from a lethal cocktail of anti-anxiety medication, methadone, antibiotics and other prescription drugs.
Her death came just months after her 20-year-old son Daniel died from an overdose in the Bahamas in September 2006.
Born Vickie Lynn Marshall, Smith married Texas billionaire oil tycoon Howard Marshall in 1994, after having met him when she was working at a strip club. She was 26 at the time and he was 89.
The platinum blonde was regarded by some as one of the world's most desirable women in the 1990s when she replaced supermodel Claudia Schiffer as Guess Jeans model. She was also Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Year in 1993.
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